Aren’t we
all trying to make sense of the world? Libertarianism is one
way and I have to say at the start that at least they are thinking for
themselves and making an effort. Off the
top of my head, at the very best, they have some really good ideas. And please let it be considered that I refer
to some, hopefully not too vague, composite of the range of libertarian
thought.
However,
that they can think for themselves – that they have available time and have
venues to express themselves – is an artifact of our current society. What is the most basic foundation for anyone
to be able to speak freely? For me there
is the burgeoning fact of economics as Richard Wolff has put into layperson’s terms. And as Andrew Bacevich references: namely,
that our freedoms are directly connected to abundance/material well-being. (It is almost as though every purchase
self-referentially celebrates this fact – if this understanding is correct then
perhaps the Ancestral
Puebloan’s pottery
breaking parties were a manifestation of this in a previous era.) More wealth meant more people (read: Irish,
Italians, African-Americans, women, gays and lesbians) could enjoy what once
were the rights of a few, land/slave-owning revolutionaries.
Freedoms
have increased coeval with a rise in wages . . . until the 1970’s. With gay marriage even being on the table we
see progress in the quest for rights of previously excluded groups. However,
the slices of pie are getting smaller.
James Howard Kunstler
envisions a return to more patriarchal ways of life. This will occur with what he sees as the inevitable
contraction due to super-high oil prices.
Also occurring in his view is conflict and a perhaps non-new age archaic revival.
So against
this backdrop we have groups that question the foundations of the existing
system. Many groups from different
perspectives based on religion, way of life, ideology, philosophy, etc. All for the good. Even better is if the questions being asked
are legitimate . . . oh, uh-oh – here is where things get tricky, there being
many different truths after all. And
every group believes its criteria for truth (which each group itself invariably
meets) are the most sound. As with
Christian fundamentalists, neo-liberals, atheists, Mormons and Ghost
Adventurers, so too with Libertarians.
And, lo!, how often are these fundamental truths among different groups
contradictory?
So why do I
talk of Libertarians? Okay, to come
clean: I do favor a few of their ideas, only the credence I have allowed them
recently has waned. The core of my
attraction is the Libertarian view of responsibility: Let me do what I want as
long as it does not infringe on the rights of others. Put more eloquently: My right to
swing my fist ends where someone else’s nose begins. You do your thing and I’ll do mine and when
we socially or commercially let this too be conducted respectfully as
adults. Who this view helps: those that
think for themselves; those that are mature; those that feel everyone should
have access to what makes them, individually, uniquely happy, barring infringing
on the rights of others. Those who the
Libertarian world view is not so much for: those that wish to be subservient;
those that want others to make decisions for them; those that are immature;
those that need to be coerced into correct behavior because on their own they
would willfully malign others.
These
opposing camps give shape to my critique of Libertarianism: alas, would that
not be an ideal world populated solely with responsible adults? My conclusion is that this manifestly is not
such a world, the second, immature, group – for whatever reasons –
necessitating some type of governmental control. The freedom of Libertarians to espouse
libertarian views is dependent on there being a form of government imposed
stability. If many of our government
institutions were destroyed there might be fertile group for experiments in
libertarian manner. I guess it is a
difference in wanting a world where your views can be put place and living a
world where your ideas must remain hypothetical.
No comments:
Post a Comment